SA's tourism boom continues
22 August 2007
The number of tourists visiting South Africa between January and May grew by 10% compared to the same period last year, driven by increasing numbers of visitors from Nigeria, Kenya and France, says Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk.
Speaking at the launch of Tourism Month at the Nelson Mandela Museum in Qunu in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday, Van Schalkwyk said South Africa was "acknowledged as one of the fastest growing destinations in the world", with a growth rate in international arrivals that "far outstrips the rest of the world."
Van Schalkwyk added that South Africa was reaping the benefits of its new airlift strategy, approved by the Cabinet last year, which had resulted in increased access to the South African market for foreign air carriers.
He said there was healthy annual growth from African air markets in the first five months of the year, led by Nigeria with a 22% increase in arrivals and Kenya at just over
12%.
South Africa is also having more success in luring visitors from the Americas, with over 140 000 arrivals from the United States, Canada and Brazil, a 5% increase over last year.
Arrivals out of Europe were up by just under 2%, driven by an 11.5% increase out of France. However, there was a loss of over 4% in arrivals from Germany, which Van Schalkwyk attributed to market-specific economic activity.
"The German government increased VAT (value added tax) by 3%, which has affected German travel purchase behaviour, but the economy is expected to normalise in the second half of the year."
Boost for economy, jobs, rural areas
Van Schalkwyk said tourism's contribution to South Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) had risen from 4.6% in 1993 to 8.3% in 2006, and that the government wanted to see this increase to 12% by 2014.
Nearly 8.4-million tourists visited South Africa in 2006.
The tourism sector also employed over
947 000 people as of 2006, an increase of 9.6% over 2005.
"The jobs and business opportunities created in tourism have special significance for economies such as ours. They help to spread opportunities beyond our major metropolitan areas to provinces like the Eastern Cape, where we are today," he said.
"They create incentives - not only to remain in rural areas, but also to develop, take pride in, and showcase local hospitality and culture."
Domestic tourism 'just as important'
Van Schalkwyk said that while international tourists were important, SA's domestic tourism market was just as important and needed to be nurtured.
Domestic travel increased by 2.7% in 2006 as some 12-million local tourists took 37-million trips. He explained that fewer South Africans (compared to 14-million in 2005) had travelled a lot more, averaging about 3 trips per tourist.
Approximately 29-million of those trips were for visiting family and
friends, 2.8-million for holiday travel and 1.9-million for business, with KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng province being both the source and destination of the majority of domestic trips.
"One of the challenges of growing the domestic market in making it a lifestyle choice so that it is not just driven by the purpose of visiting friends or family," Van Schalkwyk said.
SouthAfrica.info reporter
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